Nestbox Counter for Schwegler 1B birdbox 32mm[NC-1B-32]

£64.95

This replacement front panel for the Schwegler 1B nestbox contains one of our amazing and unique electronic visit counters, which give you detailed information about the use of your nestbox. These counters have been used very successfully for academic research, and we have made them so easy to install and to use that you can use them at home just as easily. The counter is entirely self contained, needing no external wiring, and will run for months from one pair of AA batteries. Just read the count data from the large LCD display each day and build up your own "citizen-science" data about the birds using your nest-box.

In Autumn and winter you will see how often birds are roosting in your nestbox, and this will give a good indication of whether the birds find it safe to inhabit, so will give you early signs of where they are likely to nest.

Early in Spring, you will see a sudden surge in visit numbers, as birds inspect potential nesting sites, and you are particularly likely to encounter a head-bobbing behaviour, where birds sit on the outside of a box, looking around, and poking their heads in and out of the box to check that it makes a safe nesting site. The special algorithm we have developed recognises that these head-bobbing movements are part of a single visit, as well as keeping a separate count of the individual "in-out" movements.

Later on, as the breeding season progresses, the visit counts will reflect the different phases of the breeding cycle, through nest-building, brooding, feeding and finally fledging, with the visit count rising to a total of many thousands, reflecting the hard work the parent birds put in to bringing up their young.

Seeing how the dates of these significant events vary from year to year will give you an important set of data for "phenology", the study of the seasons and how they are changing with the changing climate, which you can contribute to the database we are building to share with academic bodies such as the National Biodiversity Network and the British Trust for Ornithology.

Once you have one of these counters, you will realise how much amazing and important data you can gather from a simple nestbox in your garden, data you have been missing out on up to now.

Get the nestbox up nice and early to encourage birds to roost over winter. This will give them the confidence that the nestbox is a safe place to nest in Spring.